Don’t Try to F- with N.N. Taleb in Languages Ancient or Modern, OR Middle English
From The Spectator:
Over the weekend I, like a good dozen others, endured the Twitter
rage of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, an old man who rolls around like a drunk
trying to prove he’s still the toughest hombre at the bar. He’s the sort
of guy who screams at the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard:
He’s the sort of guy, who, when I and others objected that bragging about his citations was a ‘crass’ way to behave, cried:
He’s the sort of guy who when I replied:
Can come back with:
He’s that hard. Don’t try to f- with him in ancient or modern
languages, or middle English for that matter. He could have you with
one hand behind his back. ‘Kappish?’ – as he is fond of saying.
Taleb, if you haven’t heard of him, is an economist and the author of The Black Swan.
It sold well because Taleb purported to explain why the experts never
saw the 2008 crash coming. The debunking of authority figures is always
pleasurable. I bought it and, to my shame, admired it until friends with
a sceptical intelligence pointed out that Taleb was also the kind of
guy who could say in 2009:
Complex systems do not like debt. So it will proceed to
destroy tens of trillions in debt until society rebuilds itself in an
ultraconservative manner. We are in for a worse ride than people think.
Read that passage again. Clear your mind and try it for a third time.
Leaving aside the fact that the first sentence makes no sense, complex
societies did not rebuild themselves in an ultraconservative manner
after 2009, and eight -years on we are still waiting for Taleb’s
Armageddon....MORE
